USB slingshot controller is for the birds

This USB slingshot controller really brought a smile to our faces. Part of it is the delightfully silly promo video you’ll find after the break. [Simon Ford] combined nature and technology to bring this USB-enabled slingshot into existence.

The frame itself is from a branch he found in the Epping Forrest of London. He whittled away the bark, and hollowed out an opening in at the base of the ‘Y’ to receive an accelerometer board. It has a pair of female pin headers to interface with the mbed seen in the image above. But the real hack here is the code he wrote to translate accelerometer data into appropriate mouse movements. His success in the area makes this translate the virtual world of Angry Birds in a visceral experience of killing things with a slingshot.

11 thoughts on “USB slingshot controller is for the birds”

That is an awesome idea. I read through most of the page at the link, but I didn’t see anything on how you “click” while the birds are in flight (accelerate the yellow bird, split the blue bird, drop the egg from the white bird, etc). Is that functionality present?